Today marks the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s, “War On Poverty.” No other city throughout our fruited plains embodies the result of the Johnson policies more than Detroit, Michigan. It was after all the chosen recipient of our government’s largess in full. Detroit you see was the official, “Model City.” Known as the Paris of the Midwest in 1964, Detroit was already the very model of urban success that Johnson and his cronies wished to show off as the fruits of their programs. Detroit was a cultural center, with a vibrant collection of museums filled with fine art, historical tidbits, scientific displays. It also had an ample supply of performing arts which included live theater, a symphony orchestra, a ballet company, and more jazz and blues clubs than a stick could have been shaken at. Detroit had every major sport represented at the professional level, as well as several colleges and universities within its borders. Every citizen enjoyed access to some of what at the time were the greatest public parks and recreational facilities in the world. Really, all Detroit needed to be shown off as the great success story for any administration’s policies at that time, was to be left alone to function exactly as it had before any such bright ideas were put into practice, or even thought up.
Here is a Promotional Video put together by Mayor Jerome Cavanagh of Detroit in 1965, paid for by some of the $400 Million gifted to that city as the first participant in Lyndon Johnson’s Model City Program. In it they brag about how centralized planning was going to take them to the future and build an even greater city, which would be even better for all of its residents.
So how did the grand centralized plan work out? I seriously doubt that anyone would consider it a success. Detroit received the largest share of the largess, and every single progressive wish list program was put into practice. Corruption of course followed, as it always does, and the programs continued unabated for a full 50 years. What was left over hardly resembles the shining success so confidently predicted 50 years ago. The ravages of liberal policies, most especially when they are unchecked by people possessing some grasp on reality, no matter how tenuous, have been brutal indeed. Detroit is not the only example of this. History is replete with example after example. As a matter of fact, these policies, once enacted, have always led to this very end. There is not a single example in all of human history that contradicts this inevitable conclusion.
In December of 2009, Steven Crowder put together what I believe to be the best video describing the results of Johnson’s Model Cities Program upon the proud first such laboratory. Remember as you watch this video, what Detroit was prior to Liberalism getting its clutches on what used to be our crowning Jewell. Also remember this fact, Detroit received every federal bail out, grant, inclusion in any program dreamed of, and a healthy dose of advice from the brightest and best experts in central planning. Detroit has also enjoyed that more nefarious and evil form of aid, known as corporate welfare, government subsidy of private business, or too big to fail status.
This may be the third or fourth time that I’ve posted the Crowder Video. I do this because I believe it’s important to note that the policies advocated by our current group of political leaders are exactly the same policies that were enacted in Detroit some 50 years ago, and maintained throughout that entire period of time. Barack Obama is probably right now preparing or beginning to think about his upcoming State of the Union Address. It will be a full on one hour plea for class warfare. He will trot out these exact same policies as something new and never before tried. As he speaks, please run these two competing visions through in your head. The major difference of course is that it is not too late to put an end to this for the nation. We have the ability to stop the political left. It took the Soviet Union about 80 years to collapse under its very own Socialist weight, and Detroit sank faster. I suspect that I am not alone in not wanting to see exactly how fast we can take all of America to this end. Defeating Liberalism is not just a good idea, but an imperative.
Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.
Tags: Lyndon Johnson, War on Poverty
